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“Interesting and affecting convergence of the performative work Curt Cloninger has been doing of late with the strange, wonderful & categorisation denying oeuvre of Annie Abrahams.”5 min. special cut by Michael Szpakowski on DVblog

I’ve been speaking with your collaborator, Curt, about the Double Blind (Love) performance for an article I’m writing. I watched most of the performance online on Sunday and found it quite interesting. I kind of wish I could have seen it in one of your galleries for the event. I think it would have been a more immersive experience than what I had watching and listening from a 15″ laptop. Anyway, I was hoping to get some of your thoughts on the performance. I was wondering if you could answer a few questions?

1) How did you feel while performing on Sunday?
How did it feel while?
Intense, absorbing, alive.
It was about seduction and about autonomy about being with the other and not losing one’s own identity.
Afterwards I see three phases in the performance that resemble in a strange way the evolution of a lover’s relationship. Shy explorations, explosive meetings, desire – mature exchanges, communication mistakes and repair included – deconstruction, necessary in order to be able to continue the contact.
As an accelerated love affair that didn’t end in a disillusion or a separation but in a liberation of standard protocols, making a beyond possible.

2) Did you ever feel there way any miscommunication between you and Curt during the performance? If so, how was it managed?

Yes, there was.
Some of what happened might be due to our different starting points. I am not a singer, nor a musician, I use sound and singing to communicate. Curt is a musician (at least a part of him is), he was making music.
Of course one communicates when one makes music and one can sing to communicate, but it’s not the same, and we had to negotiate these different positions all the time, which I think was one of the interesting things in the performance.
I stopped two times for I guess about 5 min. Both times, because I didn’t know how to react any more, because I needed to grab some energy from outside our situation, to reconcentrate on myself in order to be able to go on. And each time I was very glad I did.
As for Miscommunication. I especially remember one moment. I did something strange, something that interrupted the course, the flow abruptly, it even felt awkward to me and not right, I was sorry for what I had done, but it escaped me and the only thing I could do was to try to repair, to show my good will, to try to gain Curt’s confidence, trust again. In my perception it took quit a while and it felt as if we had broken up, and I guess if I had left at that point there would have been no return possible.

3) How did you feel about ending the performance?

It was beautiful. I was watching Curt with some hard-dyers still present in the gallery. His presence was very emotional. People urged me to return, but I didn’t, I felt Curt was ok, didn’t need me to come back, the performance was over, he was just there sharing his being alone again with us.